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My girlfriend tells me I have a synthesizer problem...

I agree, you should definitely get more synthesizers. Quickly!

Well the Create and Splash version are not available in Europe, I have regular Pen and Touch Bamboo, there's also Fun and Manga versions in Europe, which just have PS Elements or Manga studio as additions (don't know if there's any other difference).

But yes, everybody seems to recommend Wacom and Bamboo versions are the "cheap" intro models. Even if you don't like it, there's a market for used Wacoms so you can probably sell without that much loss.

I actually loved the Babel Fish puzzle. It was just totally in tune with the books and the game, a playable, overly-long gag. Not too sure about some of the other examples in that article; I can really sink my teeth into a fiendish and even unfair puzzle if it feels like "it belongs there".

But limiting the number of times you can try this puzzle, while every time you discover part of the solution you find out that something else will stand in the way is really unfair, isn't it?
Plus, on a personal note, I hate when games that rely on comedy and jokes that come from variations, then limit you in your exploration. Imagine if MI sword fights gave you a limited amount of tries then kill you...it would take all the fun out of it.

The thing with Rumpley is just funny in the way it's wrong, wth wrong spelling that is solution to a puzzle. If you were playing this game at that time you'd never solve it. NEVER!

The Shakespeare puzzle seems very cool, even if it could be easier and still fun. Although since I played L4D map of Silent hill (it even had a nightmare change of scenery and puzzles like the one Chicky mentioned although easier), I am totally under stress every time somebody mentions that game.

And the rubber ducky is just a sign of clunky puzzle design, wasn't that hard or weird, especially compared to others on the list.

While we're at it, do you have some good tips for backgrounds? I'm working at one at the moment but I'm not really a natural born painter I'm afraid even though I get the basic concepts...

Perspective, just watch the perspective. Even if everything else might not be to somebody's taste, perspective (if it's wrong) will be noticeable and it's the sort of thing most people get wrong.

And yeah I just started sketches for a game and soon found it was really a bit ambitious and on the large scale...so you know, happens to everyone.

Not the best myself, but I tried to clean it up a bit as well (damn you quick Scavenger!  )


- cleared the double lines you had all over the place, it's pixel art, thickness of the lines matters on curves, diagonals etc.
- removed a shade from the hair, I think you had a few similar colors there so I substituted
- fixed the collar, again weird use of color
- fixed the feet, his left foot now looks less cartoony, but cleared, and his right foot now has actual fingers
- certain details around the bottom of the shirt
- tweaked the eyes (more like your sketch), nose, eyebrows, lips
- the colors on the hair might need a bit more contrast though

Anyway, now you at least have options/different perspectives dragontoad, hope it helps. It's not a bad sprite at all.

Nice entries everybody, good luck to you all. I'm so sorry, I lost track of time. TIME TO VOTE!

Story starts off mysterious and cyberpunky but soon becomes a bit disconnected, still the premise is interesting. Style and art are really fun and humour is good as well.
There was maybe a glitch at the end where the game didn't actually end, just kind of stopped after the credits, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be.

Still a very nice looking dip into AGS waters, good luck with the next project.

Oh, I fully agree with you Murray. They mostly control buisness firms who actually use the software and they do offer free or almost free software in education so people get used to using it and then later in life they cash in on it.
If you do make money on things you make with their software you're more than willing to pay for the software and Autodesk and Adobe products have a hefty price tag.

Advantages of Unity are that you can lock it to a 2D plane and then just work in that. You don't HAVE to go 3D. I'm thinking about tinkering with Unity 3D just to essentially make something AGS like, but which I can publish to a variety of platforms.

Go nuts:
http://www.rocket5studios.com/tutorials/make-a-2d-game-in-unity3d-using-only-free-tools-part-1/
http://www.walkerboystudio.com/html/unity_training___free__.html#unity3game3
http://www.lucianoiurino.it/point-click-graphic-adventures-system-in-unity3d/
I haven't found anything to make an adventure game, mostly platformers.

I'm not quite sure, I don't have dual monitor set up and also have about 10cm to draw anyway. There is a setting there for choosing the monitors, so I'm guessing you can choose just 1 to work with a tablet. Many people who design and draw use 2 monitors, so it should be made for such things.

I have a Wacom tablet that I currently use with a 4:3 monitor. However, I would like to have a larger monitor or two smaller ones but then it won't fit the resolution of the tablet anymore. When I use a second monitor it works fine, but I can only use a small area of the tablet because the desktop is directly mapped on it. Not sure if anyone understands what I want to say? To cut a long story short: How can I use a widescreen monitor or even a dual monitor setup while still using the full area of my tablet?

Is this a 4:3 tablet? Because there is an option in the the tablet settings to turn a 16:10 area (which the tablet has) into a 4:3 by basically making a part (on the side) of the tablet surface unresponsive (it reduces the area that's active so it fits with 4:3 resolution). You can change the area of the monitor and the tablet. I'm not sure if 4:3 tablets can turn into 16:10 though, but you can change all kinds of things.

I have a Bamboo and the option to change this is in Control Panel under "Bamboo Preferences", so check there. Then you go on Pen and there should be a button Mapping, set it from there. There might be a way to set up things automatically, but I had to go there and change the tablet area (reduce the height) and then I checked by drawing a circle in Paint, it's best to use something like a cd hole to make sure that you're drawing a circle). You lose a milimeter or two in the height but at at least it stops you from thinking you're crazy (for a month of so I was just puzzled why I couldn't copy drawings from paper properly.

Again, I'm not quite sure what you're asking here, so I hope that helps.

Hold your horses.  All might not be as it seems:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriankingsleyhughes/2013/01/07/download-adobe-cs2-applications-for-free/

...so I have to check if I have a valid licence of the product? I was under the impression Adobe knew how to protect their property, there was absolutely no warning or any message saying this on download page.

They should just shush and act like Valve and let it go, let people who download it keep it.

OMFG!
Thanks for the link.
They're pretty sure now that basically half the stuff won't be readable in their new software. Photoshop is ok by that, but InDesign CS3 won't read CS4 or 5, CS 5 won't read 5.5 or 6 versions etc. (and I'm not talking about effects or something that are not compatible, they just won't open - to open in CS3 a file from CS6 you have to export to a file that CS5 can read (and which is not 100% reliable) and then to a version that CS3 and 4 can read, so basically pro designers have to have 2-3 version of a software installed). This is btw their official version of how to view files not something that people found to work ok.

So yeah...CS2 suite versions are still 90% better than other stuff that's out there already. We can maybe expect a little boom of creations hitting the net. Shame it's not CS3 (which has Macromedia software as well) or the Production studio as well.

NOTE for Mac users - it's apparently not supported by all versions.

Very nice people, I'm glad the theme sparked some motivation. Now lets see some more! 

Also spruce up that forum a bit, the colors hurt my eyes and the whole thing looks bad from the star, sorry.

Although I'd like to make a Discworld game, I'm always kind of uneasy when working on something that's already somebody's idea, you have to adhere to certain rules and still am not sure what kind of an art style it would take (crosses fingers for Josh Kirby style ). As Synapse mentioned, yes there is a problem with copyright, although I'm pretty sure it won't be a problem for now.

The Hobbit HFR.  No, seriously.  It's Peter Jackson's scariest film to date.  I almost fell into a fetal position in the lobby on the way out of the theater.  If you want to see something messed up, see the Hobbit.  If you want to cry uncontrollably, see the HFR edition.

Ok... maybe I'm exaggerating a bit...  Although it is a horror movie in the making.  If the next movie slaughters the franchise any more, an undead Tolkien is going to begin the zombie apocalypse.   Stay away from Oxfordshire.  Unless your Mouth of War...

...and looking for that sort of thing.

I really didn't get what the 48fps did for the picture. The 3d was still blurry when the camera was moving and motion being more fluid was really not something I noticed.
I read Hobbit before LOTR books and the illustration really gave me an image of a hobbit that's different link, the only image of a hobbit plus following a story on a map was a real experience for my young mind. First LOTR book sparked my imagination even further with a cover such as this but it's downhill from there, no real emotional connection that maybe left me violated by this movie.

They stretched the story reeeeeeally bad. Hobbit is a smaller book than any one of the LOTR books and they made it into the same format of 3 films. It's not that there's nothing going on, but there are so many parts which just follow each other without any point to the story or much cohesion between them, it's just a sequence of events and now there's two more years to see the story finished. LOTR movies (even though they're also really boring at parts) at least had a culmination and some sort of wrap up at the end of each one.

Oh, btw they still haven't really explained why a moth would summon giant hawks (it happens in the Two towers as well) and it just seems like a blatant deus ex machina which is kind of more masked in the books. And Gandalf is at one moment awesome and powerful and then weak in the next - the guy breaks a giant rock in two, blasts 50 goblins away by hitting his staff on the ground and then he runs into a tree from a pack of wolves. While I think it's cool when wizards are shown as being more wise men with a few tricks than all powerful beings, that's kind of the only thing that ticks me of (everything else was just "ok").

Yeah, I discovered that rather late as well.
The thing I recently found out, while watching That Mitchell and Webb look, is that "Time gentlemen please" is a phrase for last call in a pub. Though I have never been in a British pub (was too young when I was in London), I couldn't have even known that. 

I gave up after not being able to figure out:

Spoiler

Control system of most Adventures  _O_N_ ...wth?!

[close]

And that was not the only one I really couldn't wrap my head around.

On a related note, how did you do the interactive version Khris, with google code playground?

It's kind of a silly question, I mean what's the ideal length for a novel or a song, it depends more on the internal structure of the game and it's pacing, if they're done correctly and good then it really doesn't matter how long the game is.

How's this for a cramped space?

Well I'm not going to be the only one voting, but to be honest I don't really know what I'm looking at there.